This is a transcript taken from the podcast series - My psoriasis story by I have psoriasis (anchor.fm).
I'm Tony Crimmins. I've got psoriasis and this is my story. At the age of 26 I was backpacking around the world and I found out that I had extra skin inside my belly button and on my private parts. At first I really didn't worry too much about it. Mainly because I was in places in the world where the health systems weren't that fantastic. I wasn't willing to walk in and try and find out what is the cause of this skin problem. But I did make it to London, and I did book myself into a hospital because that's all I could afford.
They came back and said to me, we believe that you've got psoriasis. I'd really didn't take much concern or care to be honest. They gave me some white tablets which to this date I don’t know what they, but I took them every day. It didn’t result in the psoriasis disappearing. I am a good medicine taker in those days. I took my medicine every day. I don't know whether these things had any other sort of side effects, but they didn't do anything for my psoriasis.
Over the next few years, the psoriasis didn't expand too much more. I had a little bit of it on my shoulders and on the sides of my arms. It then spread to the back of back of my legs and over the years it started to grow around my torso. I got it really bad around my stomach area and my bottom. It was also interesting to note that sometimes the psoriasis would move. It would go from one area like my arms and then end up on my legs. The psoriasis would stay in one area for a few years and then move to another spot. It kept on moving around and ever stayed in one place.
I tried all types of medicines that I was given as it was starting to take over more of my life. So went and saw a dermatologist three days a week because they had a UV Chamber. UV chamber was quite exciting because I was able to go into the UV Chamber initially for about 8 seconds. My skin was getting used to the UV, so they increased the time I had to stay in it and made my way up to 4 minutes. The longer you use these UV chambers, the longer you have to stay to maintain the calming effect that UV uses to control the psoriasis. But I the big negative is that I would have to come out of the UV chamber sweating and smelling very much of burnt skin. It was not the best sort of smell to have but would be better than having my psoriasis. I would prefer to be burnt then to be pain with psoriasis. Boy! I had very burnt skin. I had a sunburn that lasted nearly a day and half the benefit was I didn't have any psoriasis and that was really important to me because the psoriasis was getting it was getting out of control. I was 35 with lovely wife Helen and three wonderful daughters.
One thing I did know is that my psoriasis was probably very much related to how I was feeling. To get over a lot of the pain of the psoriasis and also the burning skin of the UV chamber. I resorted to using alcohol as a way of killing the pain. So, I started out with a few beers to try and reduce it and they became more beers. That's the thing about alcohol your never really in control and it creeps up on you no matter what you think you can keep it in control. It became a way of actually deadening the pain associated with the psoriasis itself or the from the painful treatments of psoriasis. We all know that if you start to drink too much, that doesn't help your mental approach to anything as well. That is because they're all interrelated, your psoriasis, your feelings about yourself, your diet, your relationships your anxiety basically everything. Once you start drifting away or going out of your controls this psoriasis starts to get worse, it's what I call a compounding effect. Your psoriasis becomes worse and you've got to try and make it OK.
I tried other means of controlling psoriasis using copious amounts of cortisone. I used to be able to get 10 tubes and DAIVRONEX and I used to put all over myself. We all know that this is not the best thing to do and it says on the cortisone directions do not use it for more than for three days in a row. But like everyone with pain I used it for weeks at a time because I'd rather not have the psoriasis. But it didn't really treat the skin issue. It just basically got rid of the dead skin on top, leaving me with raw skin and then give it a week, you know that this psoriasis would be back again and out comes the DAIVRONEX again. So much lack of control with cortisone.
Treatment for psoriasis was very much a lucky dip as you didn’t know if the treatment was worse than the psoriasis. But anything to get rid of the pain. I remember been given one set of drugs for a period of time and the dermatologist said when you're taking these drugs that you can't have any alcohol. I actually gave up drinking for close to four years and guess what, my psoriasis did go away while Ai was taking these tablets. When I went back to the dermatologist to get renewal stash I was told those tablets have been taken off the prescribed drugs due to the fact that they cause both kidney or liver damage. Naturally I went off those drugs and I was about 42 and I'd given up all hope of trying to find a way of treating my psoriasis.
I had been thrown out of the UV clinic they said I was on the verge of getting Melanoma because I'd spent way too long inside the UV Chamber. I must admit I also had a hand help UV wand at home which I used to use to get rid of my psoriasis. I was really dousing myself, with as much UV as I could, which we all know can result in skin cancer. Where to from here?
One thing I did know was that I regularly used to swim in the ocean,I loved swimming in the ocean. I don't know how many psoriasis sufferers there go for an ocean swim and they feel quite good about it. In summertime I go for an beach swim, lie out in the sun for a little while, and that would calm down my psoriasis for three to four days, and that was beautiful. I loved it. I knew it was the best was to get rid of my psoriasis.
At the age of 45 I restarted my attempts to gain control of my psoriasis. I reviewed how I was living, what I exercise I was doing and what sort of health controls I could implement to reduce the other side effects that is linked to psoriasis. Such as with gout. We all know that psoriasis is very much linked with gout, so that was that was a real bummer, having sever gout that for about 8 years. I still get bouts of gouts very so often, but now I control what I'm eating. The biggest lessons I've learned in life is you've got to keep healthy. You got to try and reduce your alcohol intake. I've yet to achieve that, but I will over a period of time. It is also trying to manage anxiety to reduce its ability to make you worry endlessly about anything. Try and try to get rid of that anxiety in your life as much as possible. There are techniques but I am not a professional in getting rid of anxiety. I do take a lot of magnesium now in fact I ultra saturate my body in magnesium. I have about twice the minimum that is recommended and I find that controls my ability to sleep at night. Now I get a full night's sleep. But the other thing also, it seems to also look after my psoriasis as well.
My final recommendation is: if you have psoriasis you must understand that you have it for life, but it's not all that bad. You've just got to learn to control and try and look after yourself as much as possible. Try to go natural as much as possible. It a hard situation but you need to dig in and look after your situation. There are many offering for psoriasis and in some cases you might just need to go onto biologics. At this moment everyone is getting into the biologics, and it does seem to show quite good results. I haven't taken them myself, and I'm not prepared to do that at this stage due to the previous medicines that. My message is to look after yourself; swim in the ocean. You can use my products or Abundant Natural Health Ocean Soothes range. We've got the full Monty a full array of treatments designed to actually help people in trying to deal with the psoriasis naturally. You can always write in and get some samples. Email us and we'll send you some samples. But psoriasis is different for everybody and it depends on what stage in life you are, whether you're young or old. getting to the 60s so for me I've just got to find ways of actually just maintaining a very level sort of lifestyle. No upsets, everything just very peaceful and enjoy myself as much as possible.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of my psoriasis or my psoriasis story. Next one will be with Todd Bellows, who runs overcoming psoriasis, and that's a social group. They get together and talk about the psoriasis and try to help each other with their psoriasis issues. It's a great group to be a part of and I welcome join me at the next podcast.
Keen to listen to the I have Psoriasis podcast series? Subscribe now My psoriasis story by I have psoriasis (anchor.fm).